


Reflections of Castiel

by Hannah_Girl



Series: Rare-pair Bingo 2020 [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Internal Thoughts, SPN Rare Pair Bingo 2020, castiel - Freeform, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25132420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah_Girl/pseuds/Hannah_Girl
Summary: Hannah watches over Castiel as he sleeps.
Relationships: Castiel/Hannah (Supernatural)
Series: Rare-pair Bingo 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687945
Kudos: 1





	Reflections of Castiel

**Author's Note:**

> For the rare-pair bingo square "Castiel."

It was another long night. Castiel had to pull to the side of the road and try to get some sleep. Late at night, as Hannah sat silently in the passenger seat, watching Castiel sleep soundly, his head leaning against the driver’s side door, the full moon overhead casting its soft light on him, he seemed frail, vulnerable. 

It wasn’t just the diminishing grace, although it’s what concerned Hannah the most. As she watched the other angel sleep, she could also tell there was something else. It wasn’t the fact that he seemed to need more sleep, a sign that his grace was leaving him, but there was a feeling about him. It was something Hannah didn’t quite understand. This sense of defeat.

It was as if Castiel had long since given up. Given up on everything. On Heaven, on Earth, on his own life. She felt it every time she brought up his diminishing grace, every time she begged him to take care of himself. He resisted.

As Hannah watched over him, protecting him while he slept, she worried. She thought back on the time she had known Castiel. When they first met, it was Hannah who needed him. After being left alone in that warehouse, beaten and hurt, surrounded by the bodies of angels that she had seen brutally murdered. She had been left shaken and afraid, the sole survivor. And that was all after being dropped onto this strange world so suddenly. 

She realized who he was immediately. She knew he was Castiel. Every angel had heard of him. Every angel wanted to kill him. After all, he’d been responsible for the fall, he’d murdered so many of his own kind in the war with Raphael and his encounter with the Leviathans. He’d brought them all to the brink of extinction.

And now they were all without their wings. Hannah should want him dead too. But she never, not once, thought that. She realized that in her position, it would be so easy. All the other angels would want to be in her position right now, watching Castiel wither away, the result of stealing another angel’s grace. They’d think he deserved it. 

And there was a small instance, when Hannah, too, felt her admiration in Castiel falter. When she’d learned about the grace when she began to doubt him. For a fleeting moment, she thought maybe the other angels had it right about him. Perhaps he was the spanner in the works that she should be wary of.

But that moment didn’t last long. And she never really needed much convincing to return to his side. She didn’t really understand why. Why was she so drawn to him when other angels weren’t? Was it because he helped her? Or maybe it was because, deep down, past all the eons of angelic conditioning, past the hardened belief in law and order and obedience to angelic principles, she envied him. He was different than other angels.

Hannah had begun to realize that faults in Heaven. Before, she was just a soldier carrying out orders, doing what she was told. But then angels like Naomi and Bartholemew and Metatron schemed and plotted to gain power for themselves. That isn’t how angels were supposed to be. So power-hungry. So caught up in their own schemes to make themselves powerful. 

Castiel wasn’t that sort of angel. He was neither a follower nor a power-hungry opportunist. He was humble, he was true. He valued freedom over law and order. And perhaps it was this freedom that had led to his current situation. When angels are given too much freedom to choose, what happens when they make too many wrong decisions.

Yet, despite his mistakes, Hannah still admired him. She was still by his side, and she didn’t want to be anywhere else. She’d valued these last few days here on Earth, learning from him. She’d learned more about life and love than she had ever learned up in Heaven, and Castiel had been her teacher. He’d taught her about emotions, about hope, about love. 

Love… it was a human thing. It shouldn’t be for her. Yet, as she sat there watching the sleeping angel next to her, she wondered, if maybe, she could have it too. She didn’t really understand love. She didn’t know what it meant. But she did know that this feeling was growing inside of her. From a small inkling that had made her stay with him, to the internal agony she felt every time she watched him suffer. 

And it did hurt. She realized that. It wasn’t a kind of pain she’d ever experienced before. It didn’t come from an injury, it wasn’t the same pain she’d felt when Gadreel had hurt her, or when Adina had cut her. No, this was different. It was a pain she felt whenever she saw Castiel waver on his feet when it seemed to take all of his strength just to keep going.

It was the pain she felt when she begged him to take care of himself, and he refused. It brought her nearly to tears each time. Because every time she failed to get him to focus on himself was one step closer to his death. And that was a pain she didn’t want to experience at all.

This love. Was it the reason she had been willing to make a deal with Metatron? Something that she would have found unfathomable before. In desperation to keep Castiel alive, she had been willing to consider letting Metatron back out into the world again. Just to save one angel. Even if opening that cell door would have cost her her own life. It didn’t matter, as long as Castiel was safe. 

Other angels wouldn’t like these thoughts. They’d say she was weak, that she was a traitor for siding with someone so hated among angels. Some had even compared Castiel to Lucifer. Some even said he was worse.

But Hannah couldn’t agree. Castiel was nothing like Lucifer. Castiel was unique. He was selfless. He was courageous. He cared for these humans, unlike any other angel ever had. He protected him. 

“Then, you carry on…” Castiel’s words echoed in her mind. She’d quickly pushed them away. She couldn’t believe that he trusted her like that. That her admiration in him could be mutual. That he had enough faith in her that he was comfortable dying, thinking she could carry on his legacy.

No one had ever had that kind of faith in Hannah. She was just a soldier. She obeyed Heaven’s will. That is until she met Castiel. Now her once unwavering faith in her own angelic convictions was starting to falter. She was thrown into internal conflict all because of this angel. Maybe this is what the angels had warned her about. And perhaps she was too far gone to turn back now.

And she didn’t want to turn back. She gazed over to Castiel, her thoughts focusing in on him. He was everything to her. No matter what, she promised herself, she wouldn’t let him fade away. Some way, somehow, she had to save him. Because she needed him to be alive, and not only her, but Heaven needed him. Even if the other angels didn’t want to admit it. 

Castiel may not see his own worth, but Hannah did. He may be hated among angels, but even if she tried, she could never hate him. She had nothing but love for him. As she leaned over in her chair, she took his hand in hers and squeezed it. He stirred briefly but remained asleep.

“I’m going to take care of you, Castiel,” Hannah whispered softly into the stillness of the night. “I’m not going to let you die. I don’t care what I have to do. Castiel…”

As she murmured his name, she pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. She knew he’d have no recollection of this when he woke, but she’d know. And somehow, maybe she hoped that she could transfer her strength to him.


End file.
